US To Open Anti-ISIS Centre In Malaysia

Data centre will attempt to combat ISIS online recruitment.

Seeing as how we’re always invariably linked to some terrorist plot or another, the US is planning to open a data centre in Malaysia to combat ISIS’ online recruitment and propaganda, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee was told.

Like the data centre they already have in UAE, the centre will attempt to counter the “viral spread of disinformation by state and non-state actors,” according to Richard Stengel, Under-secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

Stengel also said that since official US condemnation of ISIS atrocities is actually one of their most potent recruitment tools, the centre will instead “focus on amplifying credible voices and lifting up those voices in a coordinated way.” Yeah, us neither.

The centre will not necessarily track down actual ISIS conversations—not just because they are moving to the nether regions of the web, but also because the US would presumably want to keep such information within the country—but will mostly focus on stemming ISIS’ influence on social media platforms.

Although Malaysia was as a favourite pit stop for terrorists from other organisations in the past two decades or so, which inevitably results in a handful of local loonies signing up, the rise of ISIS has seen a major spike in local recruitment. Of which Muhamad Wanndy Mohamad Jedi—the alleged mastermind behind the grenade attack in Puchong—is one.

Just last week, Wanndy Mohamed Jedi threatened Ayob Khan, the Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division Assistant Director over the phone, not only for being the main dude fighting terrorism, but also as revenge for arresting his brother.